1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a faucet with replaceable control valves, and in particular to a faucet in which a precise ceramic control valve or a safety control valve can be mounted.
2. Description of Prior Art
Faucets available in the market are configured to allow cold water and hot water to flow through them, thereby providing water of different temperatures depending on the mixing ratio between the cold water and the hot water. Usually, the faucet is used to provide cold water or warm water. In a few cases, people may directly use the hot water supplied by the faucet. The warm water is obtained by mixing cold water and hot water in a desired ratio. The most common way of controlling the mixing ratio between cold water and hot water is achieved by a precise ceramic control valve or a safety control valve. However, since the constructions of these two control valves and their water-controlling mechanisms are different from each other, the precise ceramic control valve is incompatible with the safety control valve, so that they cannot be substituted for each other in the same faucet. As a result, the manufacturers in this field need to produce different kinds of faucets separately to meet the standards of the precise ceramic control valve and the safety control valve, which increases the cost of developing and manufacturing the faucets. Further, the faucets with different kinds of control valves have to be respectively stocked, which increases the amount of required storage space.
Thus, if there is a faucet capable of replacing control valves in which a precise ceramic control valve or a safety control valve can be compatibly used, then only a single construction of the faucet can support two different kinds of control valves, thereby increasing the functionality thereof.
In view of the above-mentioned problems, the present inventor proposes an improved faucet based on his research and expert knowledge.